Optimization Editor

Maybe it’s because I grew up as this nation was extending its reach into the cosmos, or because I saw the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” in my impressionable teen years, that all these years later I’m still getting all geeked up about outer space. And that’s why, last night, I was on the deck of the palatial Thompson estate, stretched out in a lounge chair — and maybe I’ll be there again tonight — hoping to catch a glimpse of the Perseid meteor shower.

The Perseid shower is an annual event, peaking in August, coming as the Earth crosses the orbital path of Comet Swift-Tuttle. The meteors are debris from the comet, and in places where there is no light to interfere with viewing, observers may see as many as 50 meteors in an hour.

In that respect, Mrs. Editor’s Desk and I are fairly lucky. The backyard of the palatial Thompson estate is shielded fairly well from neighborhood lights by a ring of tall trees and other thick vegetation, providing a nice circle of fairly dark sky overhead for viewing celestial events.

I’m mindful, though, that a lot of Athens-Clarke County residents don’t enjoy the luxury of even the minimally dark skies above the palatial Thompson estate, and it’s during these celestial events that I often think about former Athens-Clarke County Commissioner Carl Jordan’s years of effort to get a lighting ordinance on the books here.

He succeeded, to some degree, when commissioners approved a lighting ordinance in a 2009 vote. That ordinance, though, fell short of what so-called “dark skies” advocates had wanted, to the extent that, in the immediate wake of its passage, some of the then-sitting Athens-Clarke County Planning Commission members tried to condition positive recommendations on rezoning requests on the willingness of the party involved to submit to ad hoc lighting restrictions that went beyond the ordinance.

There are any number of technical reasons that a restrictive lighting ordinance makes sense, from energy conservation, to keeping lights from becoming a nuisance to adjacent property owners, to cutting glare to improve driving safety.

Nor is it particularly difficult to meet those worthwhile goals while ensuring that the public safety and property protection offered by nighttime lighting aren’t unduly compromised, through the use of motion-activated lights and shielded light directed onto specific areas where public safety and property protection are issues.

But there are also some aesthetic — and maybe some philosophical, and even spiritual — reasons for promoting a “dark skies” environment. I’ve made these points before on these pages, but inasmuch as we’re at the peak of an impressive celestial display this week, I think they’re worth revisiting.

I wonder, for instance, how our lives might be different if, as a matter of course, we could be outside at night in any number of places in our community and look up to — take your pick here — marvel at the wonder of God’s handiwork, or contemplate the exquisite physics that knit together the universe.

I wonder how our perceptions of ourselves, our neighbors and our world would change if we were made more aware, with each sunset, of our true relationship with the vastness of the universe.

A couple of years ago, the International Dark Sky Association, founded in 1988 with a mission of preserving the night environment through responsible outdoor lighting strategies, and the Illuminating Engineering Society, which works to improve the lighted environment, developed a Model Lighting Ordinance.

The model ordinance, approved in 2011 and updated the following year, came two years after adoption of the local ordinance. Perhaps now, as the Perseid meteor shower is commanding attention, would be a good time for local planners to take a look at the model ordinance to determine whether the local ordinance could be improved.